Seeing into the Soul
by Little Angel's Perk
Summary: The Movie doesn't take place or does it? but there are some spoilers for it Simon rescues Kaylee from a small gang on an alliance friendly planet, and gets shot. Six months later River is mysteriously no longer wanted and the crew of firefly find themsel


Title: Seeing into the Soul

Author: Little Angel

Disclaimer: I own not Firefly, tis a sad but simple truth.

Pairings: Kaylee/Simon, Wash/Zoe, Mal/Inara? (the world may never know)…..

Warnings: character death, angst, tissue alerts, other such oddities, MOVIE SPOILERS (or ARE they? Hehe)

AUTHOR NOTE: As we can see from the pairings list, Wash and Zoe are happily together AND alive. It's like the movie was a bad bad dream….. hmmm…..actually…..hehehehe…..

/Thoughts/ (right now they are Mal's)

**_SUMMARY_**: The Movie doesn't take place (or does it? (but there are some spoilers for it)) Simon rescues Kaylee from a small gang on an alliance friendly planet, and gets shot. Six months later River is mysteriously no longer wanted and the crew of firefly find themselves able to pay for all the repairs they need - with no money of their own! Those thought to be dead can't seem to stay that way and River wasn't the only student to escape...**  
**

**Prologue into Chapter 1**

_Wooosh_. The doors of the elevator opened and Mal shakily walked through them to where he saw his crew laying about. He could see his crew in the hallway, most of them bleeding and probably all in pain.

Zoe was there. Surprising in its own way really. He knew she wanted to join her husband in death. /The others musta takin issue with that….

Good. /

There's been too much death at the hands of the alliance anyway.

"_Sir_?"

"It's done." He took a look around…. Where was…

"Report."

Screams were coming from behind the door. Unhuman screams. Kind of like…

"_Mal_!" He looked down at Inara, keeping pressure on the doctors wound. "She's fighting them."

_Silence_…..The only sounds were the breathing of the crew.

"_He needs to…"_ The door separating them from the Reavers opened slowly. Blood was soaking through the seams and coating the doors.

River. She was standing on the other side of the door. Two weapons clutched in her hands, dripping blood. The blood of the Reavers apparently.

"_That girl's mental!" _Mal looked over at Jayne and nodded.

"_How could she do something like that?_"

"_She must've picked 'em up while…."_

_KABOOOM_. The wall behind River exploded and Alliance soldiers with guns loaded and trained on them filled the room.

"Drop you're weapons!"

Jayne and Zoe's guns were thrown to the floor. "_Sir!"_

"Do it now!"

"_He's sweatin real bad! That ain't no good right?_" Blood droped off the blades in River's firm grip. Mal looked down at Simon who was sweating really badly.

"I want to see your hands in the air."

/After all that. Shepard Booke….Wash….Mr. Universe…. And the Alliance is still going to win. Ruttin gui sunzi. /

"Targets are acquired." /Well at least we got that signal out. So it all wasn't in vain. But hell. I don't want to die at the hands of the Alliance… /

"…'_s stabilizing. Good._"

"Do we have a kill order?" River's head slowly turned towards the Alliance officers behind her.

/If they open fire in here, she might live…but the rest of us sure won't. /

"_Any minute now…_"

"I repeat – do we have a kill order?"

"_Sir!"_ _/Zoe? _/

"_Cap'n, come on, wake up!" /Kaylee/_

Shaking…the whole building was shaking. /No…wait… what in the gorram hell is going on/

Mal was the only one shaking. Or rather, someone was shaking him.

A lot.

/What the…/

**8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8**

Voices were talking all around him – loudly. There was something damp on his forehead lightly leaking water down into his ears. And someone was _still_ _shaking_ him.

Mal twitched his head, which displaced the cloth. "Hey look, the cap'n's wakin up."

Mal opened his eyes/When did I close them again/ The shaking stopped immediately but he quickly closed his eyes again because of the blinding light being dampened only by Jayne's head less than a foot away from his face.

Mal groaned. "Jayne you gui sunzi! You are not the first thing I want to see when I open my eyes – any time of the day or night - ever. Got it?"

Someone off to the side snickered. "Look, sleeping beauty is waking up!"

/Was that… / "Wash?" Malcolm Reynolds, captain of the Firefly ship _Serenity_ shot up from his reclined position, turned sharply to see if his ears were somehow deceiving him, and almost toppled over when the room didn't stop turning when he did.

"Woooh, easy there cap'n. You've been out like a tank for almost 10 hours now." Jayne and Wash both helped him regain his balance to sit up on the table when he fought against them to lie back down.

"What in the world is going on here!" /Never mind that he seemed to be talking to loud for his head, which didn't take to kindly to the level of his voice. "Ow…"

His crew all exchanged looks while he cradled his head in his hands, as if the action would help lesson the Reaver folk dance going on in there.

"How do you feel?" Simon's soft but concerned doctor tone managed to cut through the dance enough for him to answer – quietly.

"Like there is Reavers folk dancing in my head….." Mal looked over at the doctor. "Why aren't you bandaged up? Or bloodied up?"

Simon's eyebrows shot up and he moved closer to examine the captain's eyes with a small light. "I'm not sure I know what you mean captain…"

It was the perfect chance for the captain to grab the doctor's collar and stop him from moving away. He used his other hand to pull up the doctor's shirt – completely ignoring the indignant squawk from said doctor – to check his stomach/chest.

Which was completely smooth and bullet wound free. "Captain! Let go of my shirt!"

"There was a bullet wound here! Not ten minutes ago! What in the gorram hell happened?" Mal was starting to get a little worried. First no one's injured, one of the two people he thought were _dead_ was sitting and starring at him, being particularly amused, _and_ _he_ was the only one who thought something was completely out of place.

Simon managed to get his shirt out of the hands of his distressed captain, and proceeded to check his eyes with the little light. "Do you feel nauseous or light headed at all?"

"Ow… not at the moment, however I reckon _you _may be feeling a bit light headed if you don't start answerin my questions in a timely manner." Mal attempted to push the pen light away from his face.

Simon walked over and picked up some pain killers from his bag and filled a glass of water, "What is the last thing you remember?"

"We were on Mr. Universe's planet attempting to send out a signal about how the Alliance created the Reavers. Ya'll were shot, dead, or bleeding in some way – except River over there who happened to take down a larger amount of Reavers than most would think was possible. Then the Alliance stormed in and wanted us to surrender. I thought they were leveling the building or something, but apparently I was the only thing shakin." Mal glanced at his crew.

There was a collective silence and as they all starred back.

"…Ya'll remember differently I take it?"

Simon glanced at Zoe before asking, "What day is it captain?"

Mal's eyebrow's shot up, "what kinda question is that?"

"I would think it's a logical one. Considering what happened."

"What's that supposed to mean!" Mal looked around the room, "and can someone explain ta me why Wash ain't _dead_?"

"Sir," Zoe decided it was time to join the conversation, "is there any reason why he should be dead?"

"Wash was impaled with one of the Reaver's harpoons when it came through the window of the ship! After we crash landed on Mr. Universes' front door and were being attacked by both the Reavers and Alliance. Though the Alliance came after River managed to take out the Reavers looking ta do unseemly things to us."

Again with collective blankness of stares from the crew. /I swear they practiced that or somethin…. Or I reckon they're all takin after the doc to much. /

"Captain! I must protest! I am not dead, and this better not be some new scheme of yours to sleep with MY wife!" Wash was somewhere between amused and mildly alarmed at what the captain had said, but like always he let amusement win out. Besides, the captain didn't know what had happened to him yet.

"WHAT? Owwww…." Mal cradled his head in his hands. "If I recall correctly, YOU were the one wantin me ta sleep with her the first time!"

"So you admit it! However, I'm sorry to say, we're not being tortured to death, I'm not dead, and you're most certainly NOT sleeping with Zoe!" Serenity's pilot proceed to drag said amused wife from the room, muttering about the captain's repressed sexual tension and his need to find another suitable women to take up fantasies with and the "special hell" the Shepard was always going on about when referring to the captain.

Said captain just blinked at his retreating crew members.

The rest of the crew attempted to hide their amused smiles, giggles, and silent laughter behind their hands, hats, or chart in Simon's case.

"Well…. That was interesting." Mal glared at Inara, who was calmly starring back.

"Cap'n, what daya remember 'bout the main buffer panel?" Kaylee spoke up to attempt to see how much the captain remembered and to stop him from hitting Simon for asking anymore questions. Simon was just glad the others were helping with the questioning process. He was never good at that sort of thing.

That caught Mal's attention, "It fell off about a week ago. Before we were about to pull the job at the alliance out post to get the mercs pay."

Kaylee's eyebrow's shot up and she glanced over at Simon, "Captain… I'm not sure how to tell you this, but you never pulled that job…"

"We didn't? And how do you reckon that not takin place?" He stared down the ship's doctor.

"Well, River drugged you with a dosage of two different types of drugs that when put together cause dreams, or hallucinations. You've been knocked out for about 10 hours now."

It was Mal's turn to stare blankly. "You're sayin that sister of yours _drugged_ me?"

Mal looked around for the culprit, who was no where to be found in the infirmary. She must've slipped out when he wasn't watching, which was highly likely. He glared at the next best person, her brother, and got up off the bed he was sitting on. Thankfully the room stayed on its axis and didn't spin… too much.

"Mal calm down." As usual Inara came to the aid of the Tam siblings.

"Oh, I'm calm alright. I'm just curious ta figure out how she managed ta do that without me knowing is all."

"We passed a Reaver's raiding ship on the way there," Wash spoke up from the door. He and Zoe hadn't fully left; Zoe had dragged them back to find out more about this story of the captain's. "River came up behind you when you went to talk with Kaylee about the buffer panel and she got you with the drugs the Doc mentioned."

"I called fer Simon, an' we managed ta get ya back ta the infirm so he could take a look at ya. An fix ya up, all nice an proper again." Kaylee also came to Simon's aid.

"But we went to the planet right? Completed the job?"

"Sir, the planet was hit with Reavers not an hour after we passed them. If we would've been there we would've been caught with the town."

"We were going to take River though! She was going to warn us to the Reaver presence in time for us to get away with some mighty fine flyin from both you and Wash…. Ya'll need ta stop with the blank stares, it's gettin outlandish and a might odd."

"That flying comment better not be code for really us having really good sex! I'll be very upset if it is, not the sex itself honey because that is like flying, but the fact that the captain still seems to be harboring fantasizing about you…and me…. with the whole having sex thing…"

"Wash! Would you knock it off with the sex talk! I do not desire Zoe, or You in any way, thank you very much."

There was assorted snickering from the crew. Then, "Wait! You were going to take RIVER on a JOB," from the esteemed doctor.

"Doc, we've had this conversation before as I recall, although I'm thinking you might not, what with it being a dream apparently, but the point is, it landed us in a whole heap of trouble. An a might bit of fightin."

Simon started muttering to himself as he moved away to write some things on his chart, it sounded vaguely like, "…was drugged and hallucinating, possibly the reason for the excess insanity and sexual fantasies…"

There was also something about a psychologist, but Mal ignored him in favor of looking around for River. "Where is that girl anyway?"

"She's probably off hijackin your ruttin ship, right out from under your gorram nose."

"No Jayne that would be you. However, since I reckon you're here and not out there then I don't need to worry all that much." Mal didn't even bother looking in Jayne's direction with his retort.

"Sir, we also hailed the twins and let them know the job went south with the Reavers' attack. They were disappointed, but soon got over it when Jayne came into view of the screen holding Vera."

"Weren't nothin. Vera wanted some time out ta see them stars." Jayne had a mischievous grin on his face as he said that.

"I'm sure she did. Any chance we can do the job now?"

"No sir, the feds got there over two hours ago and cleaned out the vault. What with the town being destroyed and everything there was no need to leave the money out there." Zoe's voice was dripping with sarcasm. She was obviously picking up on her husband's amusement from before.

Mal rubbed a hand over his face. Another job blown because of something Tam related. His day, or night really since he was drugged most of the day, was going just shiny. He was also completely ignoring the fact that not taking the job because of the drugs may have saved his life and his crew's lives. But it was the principal of the thing!

"Mal, if you're tired, maybe you should go lay down for a while. It is getting late."

Mal turned towards Inara, "I just slept for ten gorram hours. I am not in the least bit lookin to go ta sleep anytime soon. Ya'll go get some rest. It's apparently been a long day and it'll be longer tomorrow, of that I can assure you."

"Where are we heading sir?" Zoe stepped in to stop any impending arguments between Inara and the captain.

"Not sure yet, but I'll set us a course before the sun rises tomorrow."

Wash wisely didn't say anything. He just turned, pulling Zoe with him and headed towards their bunk. Kaylee shot some glances at the doctor, but he was making sure the captain would be able to make it to the bridge without killing himself.

Jayne left without much fuss, a muttered "it's about time we got some gorram sleep around here," was ignored by everyone else on their way out the door.

Mal glared off Simon's assistance on getting to the bridge, so the doctor went looking for River as his next big priority or to talk with Kaylee, Mal wasn't quite sure which. Inara shook her head and slowly walked back to her shuttle. Mal was okay, so she was content for now.

_Serenity's _captain stopped off at the shared bunk of his first mate and captain just to be _sure_ Wash wasn't on the wrong end of a Reaver harpoon. Zoe answered the door when he knocked. "Sir?"

"We're sure Wash ain't dead?"

A not so muffled retort of "NO SEX WITH MY WIFE FOR YOU," was all he got before Wash closed and locked the door to their bunk.

Mal shook his head and made his way to the bridge, sans help from his crew, relatively unscathed for his efforts. Which made him prouder than he was about to admit out loud. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and noticed someone sitting in the co-pilot's seat, apparently waiting for him.

Mal jumped slightly, "What in the gorram hell are _you_ doing up here?"

End Prologue/Chapter 1

Gui Sunzi - Bastard (all translations taken from "Mandarin slang" - on Wikipedia)

Rutting and Gorram we should all know from the series, so no need to translate those...yes?


End file.
